


an immutable law

by seinmit



Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Black Reproduction Manipulated by the American Government, Blood, Discussions of slavery, Graphic Discussions of Anti-Blackness, Implied Mpreg, Knifeplay, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Rage, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-05 19:53:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20278894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seinmit/pseuds/seinmit
Summary: Wakanda revealed itself to the world and started outreach programs before Erik Stevens executed his grand design.T'Challa came to Oakland, aiming to find a spot for the first Wakandan Outreach Center. Erik Stevens was sent to him by the US Government with a very specific mission, but he still had plans of his own. T'Challa must reckon with it all.





	an immutable law

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Yen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yen/gifts).

> This fic contains strong themes of rape and non-consensual sex. The consent issues get somewhat complicated mid-sex. If it is something that may bother you, jump to the notes at the bottom for a detailed description of the plot. 
> 
> In addition, there is an explicit discussion of anti-Black violence and a reference to the real life and death of Tamir Rice. More on that in the endnotes, too. 
> 
> There is also a brief discussion of slavery and the forced breeding of enslaved people, including Erik using some highly racialized language. 
> 
> Title is from James Baldwin.
> 
> _“Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law."_\- James Baldwin, from _Notes From a Native Son_.

This man was furious. He could see that immediately, as casual and welcoming as his smile tried to be.

T’Challa smiled his most polite diplomat’s smile and reached out to shake his hand. 

“T’Challa,” he said. “And you must be Mr. Stevens. They told me that you would help me find my way around Oakland.” 

The man shook his hand and squeezed just a little too hard. T’Challa struggled not to roll his eyes. They both carefully kept their wrists from brushing. No accidental scent-marking here. 

“It’s a pleasure,” he said. “Please, call me Erik.” 

His voice was smooth and television-neutral. He had a little smile on his face. If it wasn’t for the darkness in his eyes and the overwhelming sense of a predator, suppressed, T’Challa might have been fooled. As it happens, the tone grated in the same way a beautiful man in an ill-fitting suit did—it didn’t fit, it wasn’t wanted, and it just served to make everything a little more sordid. 

The suit that Erik was actually wearing, of course, fit beautifully. It was sedate. He wore gold glasses and his fade was crisp. T’Challa had no doubt that the glasses were intended to soften his hard eyes. 

“Follow me,” Erik said. “We have several sites for you to inspect.”

They made their way to the car that had been hired for them. They climbed in the back seat and Erik leaned over to put up the barrier, giving them a zone of apparent privacy in the soft black leather of the spacious back seat. Certainly, they were still being observed. 

Erik lounged more than he sat. One of his legs was bent parallel to the ground, propped on his other knee, and he wrapped his hand around the ankle. The pose revealed colorful plaid socks. It was clearly purposefully disarming.

“I understand you are military. Special forces, even,” T’Challa said. “This seems like a strange assignment for you.” 

Erik’s eyebrows raised. The specifics of Erik’s background were certainly not in the profile sent to Wakanda, but Wakanda didn’t need much help in getting intelligence it needed. Particularly when it seemed that the CIA had decided to send an assassin instead of a liaison.

“Seems like you make some people nervous, your highness,” Erik said. “And I really am a local.” 

“T’Challa, please,” he corrected. “I’m grateful for your insight. I have never been to Oakland before, but I understand that it would be an excellent site for our outreach centers.” 

“Oh yes,” Erik said. “Oakland could use a lot of outreach. Your Highness.” 

T’Challa cast him a glance and Erik smiled back, all teeth. He decided not to comment on it. 

“We hope to improve the lives of people,” T’Challa said, mildly. “We have a lot of resources to offer.”

“Mm,” Erik said. “You surprised a lot of people, coming out and declaring you wanted to give aid to a bunch of first world countries.”

“We want to help,” T’Challa said. “We can help, so we should.” 

He could feel Nakia’s presence, as he spoke. He felt like he was speaking her lines, as if she was sitting next to him. He could almost smell her, the sweet omega scent—no. No, actually. That was real. That was Erik. 

That was interesting. 

“Noble of you,” Erik said. “After-school programs. Food pantry. What else are you planning?” 

“Work placement,” T’Challa said. “And training.” 

He felt defensive and he wasn’t sure why. He wanted to tell Erik that this was more than he previously had wanted, more than they’d dared for centuries—but he was pretty sure that wouldn’t go over well. 

“Is there something else you think would be suitable?” T’Challa said. He regretted it the moment it left him. It was defensive. 

“Oh, not really,” Erik said. His voice was light. “It’s just imma military man at heart, you know, and it gives me certain instincts.”

His accent changed. T’Challa wouldn’t call it a slip. 

“But you will do a lot of good for these kids,” Erik continued, voice back to American standard. He had a strange inflection on “these kids,” though, like he was quoting something. T’Challa decided to let it go. 

“We are going to try,” T’Challa said. It felt hollow and insincere. He hated these moments. It was not something he was proud of, but whenever he encountered a member of the diaspora he found himself wanting to squirm away. He never knew exactly what to say. It was one of the reasons why he eventually gave in to Nakia’s persuasion, that feeling of discomfort. He was enough of a man to know that discomfort like that meant you had to lean in.

He cleared his throat. “What is our first stop?” 

“An abandoned housing project,” Erik said. “Shouldn’t be more than a couple more minutes.” 

They sat in silence. The smell of Erik grew stronger in the enclosed space. He resisted the urge to knock on the partition and ask the driver to change the air-conditioning so it brought air in from the outside. That would be unspeakably rude. It wasn’t as if Erik reeked—it was just the normal smell of a healthy omega male. It was on T’Challa that he found it so intriguing. 

He kept his eyes forward but he could feel Erik watching him. He was a big man. He gave off heat. 

“Why you, though?” Erik said, out of nowhere. “Don’t you got people for this sort of thing?” 

It was a good question. T’Challa gave Erik the courtesy of taking it seriously and thinking about it.

“I’m not going to do all of this myself,” T’Challa said, finally. “But this is new. Our people have not done anything like this before. I owe it to them to oversee it personally, at least at first. And I owe it to the people we aim to help to look them in the eye. Sometimes it is easy, in Wakanda, not to see.” 

Erik’s face was unreadable. T’Challa wasn’t sure if he gave the right answer. 

“Why you?” T’Challa said. “This is not your normal role.” 

Erik snorted. 

“It ain’t?” he said. “I’m always a body for them. The government thinks you’ll like me. They figure I can be a very _welcoming_ host.” 

His shifting accent gave the tone a strange intimacy that made the implication hit all the harder. T’Challa sat up straight, unsure if he was reading it correctly or projecting or _something_. 

“What do you mean?” he said. His voice took on the commanding note that he had previously tried to avoid in this conversation. 

Erik chuckled. 

“We are here,” he said. He climbed over T’Challa in order to get out of the car on the sidewalk, but he was excruciatingly careful not to touch him. It was a big backseat. 

T’Challa waited a moment, trying to ground his heart-rate, before following him out. 

The brightness of the day was startling. It smelled, in the heat—garbage, neglect. 

There was the thump-thwack of basketballs hitting concrete and the shuffle-squeak of sneakers. He heard some kids talk trash in tones that would be entirely familiar if they were in Xhosa. Erik was watching them, thumbs looped in his belt and leaning against a chainlink fence. 

His face was blank. 

“Are you ready, your highness?” Erik said. His voice was a perfect mask again. 

“Ready for what?” T’Challa said. 

Erik nodded toward the large, beige building across from the basketball court. It was dirty and derelict, with stains creeping down the walls. There was a sign proclaiming its abandonment. 

“I assumed you would want to look at the place where your outreach might happen,” Erik said. 

“Of course,” T’Challa said. “Lead the way.” 

Erik nodded and made his way to the door. It was padlocked. T’Challa expected him to take out a key, but instead he grunted and reached for a cinderblock teetering on its side on the front of some unkempt green brush. 

He picked up the cinderblock and smashed the lock off the door, casual. 

T’Challa raised his eyebrows. 

“Is this standard procedure for checking out property in Oakland?” he said. 

“This is my choice,” Erik said. “The city didn’t put it on the list, but I think you’ll like it.” 

He didn’t look back at T’Challa as he went inside. 

T’Challa followed him into the dim light of the lobby. It was dusty and yellowed. The floors were filthy and the linoleum curled up. He still didn’t look at T’Challa as he pushed open the door to the stairs and made his way up. T’Challa followed, curious. 

This was off-script, on any number of levels. T’Challa’s heart was beating and his muscles were tense. Something was coming. It very well might be an attack. Erik Stevens had a lot of deaths to his name. It would be strange for the CIA to make an attempt like this, but not unprecedented. They specialized in destabilizing the so-called Global South. T’Challa was confident any murder attempt would only be an attempt, but it wasn’t what he had expected, waking up this morning. 

“Recognize this place, highness?” Erik called out, a flight above him. His voice echoed in the bare stairwell. 

“No,” T’Challa said. “Should I?” 

“Oh, no reason in particular,” Erik said. That was a lie. 

T’Challa reached for his kimoyo beads and tapped it in a little pattern that indicated alert. It wouldn’t summon anyone to his position, not just yet, but it was an indication for his people to be ready. 

He heard a door slam and that was his only indication that Erik left the stairs. He followed him out, into a dark hallway. He could see footsteps in the dust, leading up to a door, slightly ajar. 

He walked through and had a moment to see the dark living room—there was trash, a boarded window, soft patterned fabric hanging—before Erik slammed him against the wall and there was a knife at his throat. 

T’Challa reached for his wrist but the knife pressed harder into his throat, cutting into his skin. He froze. It felt like cold fire, but it didn’t go deep. 

Erik clucked at him. “No, highness, you not gonna do that.” 

He reached for T’Challa’s wrist and pulled the beads off, tossing them to the side. T’Challa hoped Okoye’s natural suspicion would be enough to send her running, especially when the life-signs cut out. 

“What is this?” T’Challa said. His voice was even. 

“This is a set-up,” Erik said. “This is a change of plans. This is fucking destiny, you feel?” 

He was so close. T’Challa could feel his heat pressed all the way up his front, Erik holding him down with his hips. T’Challa could smell blood, and sweat, and musk. He could smell anger, unmanageable anger. It was too much. Erik’s breath smelled sweet.

“Who are you, Erik Stevens?” T’Challa said. 

“Killmonger, but you know that,” Erik said. He roughly yanked down his sleeve on the hand holding the knife, revealing countless scarred bumps. “I’m a killer, highness. Each one of these marks is a death. And you gonna be one of them. I just have to decide where to put you.” 

“No,” T’Challa said. “No. Who are you? This is not what your masters sent you to do.” 

He was sure of it. It didn’t make sense. And if he was going to die, Erik would have already killed him—there was no need to talk to him. He cannot imagine any of those other deaths got a face-to-face speech. A mission wouldn’t make that bead of sweat slip down Erik’s forehead. His scent was intense and getting stronger—curling almost sickly in T’Challa’s nose.

Erik snarled. 

“My masters forgot what they made me for,” he said. “They got comfortable. They forgot, when you give a slave a weapon, he ain’t entirely a slave no more.” 

“What did they send you here to do, Erik?” T’Challa said. He heard his own voice as if from a great distance, a rushing sound in his ears. 

Erik leaned in and smelled T’Challa and then licked up a drip of blood. His tongue was incongruously soft against T’Challa’s skin.

“They thought you a fine buck for me,” Erik said. The smooth accent he’d been affecting all afternoon was entirely gone. “They found out something they got no right to and they decided they wanted in on my plan. I slipped and was stupid, when you got up there on the world stage and announced your _charity_, and they thought they had an in. But they forgot, highness. They fucking forgot.” 

“Erik—“

“N’Jadaka,” Erik spat out—actually spat, liquid landing on T’Challa’s skin. “My daddy called me N’Jadaka, cuz. And then your daddy killed him.”

T’Challa was choking on the scent, on the air, on the fury coming off Erik in waves. It was hard to process what he was saying, to make any sense of it at all. 

“What?” he said. He was off-balance—the knife. The dust of years abandoned in the room. The heat. Erik’s _heat_. 

Erik licked him again, sucking a little at his skin. He made a grunting noise in his throat. 

“I’m royal blood, cuz. You mate me, I’ve got every right to your throne,” he said. “That’s what they want me to do. I’m a prime piece of fucking livestock.” 

“But your plan is to kill me?” T’Challa said. He was breathless. He was trying not to get hard, but his self-control wasn’t up to the task and he could feel his cock thickening in his pants. This man—he was probably crazy. He was definitely out of his mind right now. But he was strong. His body was like iron against T’Challa’s.

“Fuck you,” Erik said, savage. “Fuck you, you uppity piece of shit.” 

He dug the knife in a little more and it was a searing pain. It felt as sharp as a scalpel. T’Challa should probably appease, he should try to get out of this with his life and his knot kept to himself, but he felt drunk on it all. On Erik, his smell, the pain. 

“If you let me go,” T’Challa said. “You need not have masters anymore. If you are who you say you are, there is a home for you.” 

Erik bit down, hard. His teeth dug in the wound his knife had made. T’Challa groaned, unable to bite back the sound. 

He pulled back, blood on his lips and teeth, and pressed his weight harder into T’Challa so that he could pull the hand not holding the knife away. He yanked his lower lip down and yes, there it was—the mark. He was Wakandan. He reached under his shirt, brought out a ring on a chain—the royal ring. 

“I am who I say I am, motherfucka,” Erik said. “I sure am. But there's no home for me. You can’t outreach me.” 

He was grinding his hips into T’Challa. He wondered if Erik knew he was doing it. 

“What are you going to do to me?” T’Challa said. Stall, he decided. He could stall. Okoye was coming, almost certainly. 

“You’re going to give me what I need to do what I gotta do,” Erik said. “And _then_ I’m going to kill you.” 

Erik suddenly shifted them, a harsh burst of strength, and threw T’Challa down on the floor. He wasn’t expecting it, wasn’t braced against it. He went down. He started scrambling to get up, but Erik landed on top of him hard and dug the point of his knife into the skin over T’Challa’s carotid artery. Erik straddled him and ground his ass against T’Challa’s cock. 

“Is the knife supposed to scare me, now that I know I’m a dead man?” T’Challa said. He grunted, trying not to rock his hips up, but it was hard to keep his mind clear. 

“Maybe your dick is gonna persuade me,” Erik said. “Maybe you think you gonna get out of this. I figure, being a prince gotta give a man a lot of hope.” 

Erik bent backwards and yanked his own pants down, fumbled at T’Challa’s pants and got his dick out. 

T’Challa took advantage of the brief moment of distraction to buck his hips up and he used enough force to shake Erik, send him to the side. 

Erik scrambled, lunging for T’Challa again without much grace. T’Challa tried to crawl away, but Erik grabbed the back of his shirt and held him. 

“You are your master’s creature,” T’Challa said. “This is what they taught you. You’re just following through.” 

“You don’t know what the fuck you are talking about,” Erik said, hauling him back, trying to get back on top of him. T’Challa fought. “You are talking straight shit. I learned what I had to learn, in the world that was left for me. You’ve been sitting in your fairy tale kingdom, thinking you better than the rest of us, because you never had to learn to survive. You think you gonna fix this with school, you stupid motherfucka.” 

T’Challa knew he could fight harder than this. He knew it. But Erik’s scent, his voice—it was all enough to make him slow, make him hesitate. N’Jadaka. His cousin. None of this made sense to him, all of it was enough to keep him there. 

“What would fix it, N’Jadaka?” T’Challa said. “What don’t I understand?” 

Erik steadied T’Challa’s dick with the hand not holding the knife and sat down on it without any ceremony at all. When T’Challa bucked up again to try to get him off, he just fucked up into Erik deeper. 

He was hot, and dripping slick, and tight like a vice. A dark noise built in Erik’s chest as he rocked back down onto T’Challa’s dick. 

“They look at you,” Erik said. Now he sounded breathless. “They look at you and they can’t see you. You gotta make them see you, highness. You gotta force them to look. No job, or school, or food is enough when a man looks at a little kid with a toy and shoots him in the head—they can’t see nothing but Black.” 

He sounded like he was in pain. There was no pleasure in this and yet, T’Challa felt liquid heat build in everyone of his muscles. Erik was hard, liquid glistening at the tip of his cock, and it didn’t flag one inch. 

“I’m going to make ‘em see,” Erik said. He didn’t sound like he was even talking to T’Challa anymore. “Wakanda—y’all could make ‘em see. The only language they understand.” 

The knife sliced T’Challa’s skin again, but this time it was carelessness. Erik was close and driving hard. T’Challa could feel his knot build, catching on Erik’s rim. 

“Fuck,” Erik said. “Oh, fuck.” 

He rolled his hips, eyes fluttering. 

T’Challa took the opportunity and flipped them but—he didn’t pull out. He didn’t fucking want to, and he decided not to examine that. He drove his hips harder into Erik. 

“You want to be king, N’Jadaka?” T’Challa said. The knife was loose in Erik’s hand, but at T’Challa’s words he shifted, tried to get it back to T’Challa's throat. T’Challa slammed his wrist down against the floor, hard. He banged it again, twice more, until Erik dropped the knife. 

He kept fucking him. 

“You gotta learn to be a man to do that,” T’Challa said. 

Erik showed T’Challa his teeth. There was dark red blood staining them. “You gonna teach me, highness? Gonna show me, cuz?” 

He clenched hard around T'Challa's dick, rocking his hips.

“Bast, oh—Bast,” T’Challa said. 

“Yeah, that’s right,” Erik said. “Give me what I need.” 

“I’m going to fuck you,” T’Challa said, doing what he promised. “I’m going to knot you, breed you—and then you’re going to come back with me. You’re going to have to learn. Going to have to teach me. Because I see you, you made me see you.” 

Erik cursed and came between them, soaking T’Challa’s shirt. He clenched around T’Challa’s dick, like a vice, and T’Challa followed him, fucking up into him as deep as he could get and feeling himself start to come. His knot swelled to its full extent, locking them together. They’d never get free, now. 

Erik was panting, eyes closed. His face looked strangely soft, just for a moment. But the smallest shift of T’Challa’s body made him snap his eyes open and it went hard again. 

“Bond me, then,” Erik said. “Fucking do it.” 

T’Challa stared at him. This was crazy, on any number of levels. This man was going to murder him. This man _raped_ him, at knife-point—he didn’t make a choice in any of this. This man was the dog of the CIA, a murderer with hundreds of kills to his name. This was a plot. His country was in danger. 

His eyes were direct and challenging. A sneer started to form on his lips, at the delay. He could see in Erik's face, the knowledge that T’Challa wasn’t going to do it. That this was crazy, that they were both crazy. That they were both created things, made by giant forces outside of their control. That they were locked in a position, both shared and totally, impossibly alien from one another. 

T’Challa looked at him and saw the people that Nakia had told him about, living out in the world, and what had become of him. He thought of his father, who had always said he had a soft heart, and knew this wasn’t about that. There was nothing of softness in this. It was just how you had to respond to hatred, when it looked like it did on Erik.

He bent down and sunk his teeth deep into the join of Erik’s shoulder, cementing the bond with Erik's blood in his mouth, just as Okoye and her soldiers burst down the door of the apartment.

**Author's Note:**

> In this fic, Erik is sent to seduce T'Challa and get pregnant by him as a way of getting a CIA agent on the Wakandan throne. Erik has his own plans, specifically to kill T'Challa. Those plans evolve over the course of the fic into wanting to get pregnant by T'Challa and then kill him. Erik rapes T'Challa at knife-point, specifically by using his pheromones of heat to get him hard and then fucking himself on him. Toward the end of the sex, T'Challa regains control over the situation and decides to keep fucking Erik and ends up bonding him. While T'Challa has disarmed Erik and is somewhat in control, the hormonal power of Erik's heat should not be discounted.
> 
> Also, the opinions that Erik has about the implications of Tamir's murder are his own and are, notably, different than his mother, Samaria Rice's. Samaria Rice is building the Tamir Rice Afrocentric Cultural Center in Cleveland and it is worth [checking out.](https://www.tamirericefoundation.org/)


End file.
